###

### The M'lud Life : Episode One

### It Came From Ludlow

# 1 : OUTSIDE THE PENTHOUSE
hilary, killian, and the christian union are introduced

### F/X

### [Whistling. A single note, erratically stop-starting.]

### NARRATOR

Ludlow, Shropshire. Killian Redgrave, an immensely respected High Court Judge, returns home from a long hour’s ping-pong at the Judicial Recreation centre. Thanks to the enforcement of an archaic local by-law, Killian is forced to live with two other judges in a stylish penthouse flat, and sleep in a wall-mounted bag, like human meat on a space ship. His face often sticks out like a delightful little mole, as he paws the sleep from his eyes, wrinkles his nose and gives a tiny sneeze. He whistles, but he will only whistle the note B flat. B flat is the only note not to appear in the Pulp single “Disco 2000”, which was playing when he watched his mother choke on her own hand.

### KILLIAN
[continues whistling]

### NARRATOR

His joy is soon to be interrupted, however, when he hears a scuffling from the inside of his flat. Today is to be a day like any other, except it will be messier, and more unusual.

### KILLIAN

[voice is hard and dramatic, except when giggling, when it is extremely camp] What’s that? My spider sense is tingling. [giggles] Hmm. That feels rather nice. Hmmm. But something must be wrong. It‘s Hilary. He’s in danger! [giggles again] A ha! Oh, ride on time! This spider sense is lovely! I’m having big fun!

### NARRATOR

Hilary Winters. One of the dying breed of male Hilaries. Hilary in this context is actually short for Hilarious, because when men are called Hilary, it is extremely funny indeed. Hilary is currently in his bedroom, struggling for his beliefs under the most aggressive Christian Union in the UK. The Ludlow Christian Union believe that the law of Man is as nothing next to the mighty Word of God. So they steal Chunky Kit Kats and set fire to cars.

# 2 : INSIDE THE PENTHOUSE
killian scares off keith, and hilary’s arse comes into it

### HILARY

Get your fingers out of my ears. It’s making weird squelchy sounds that only I can hear.

KEITH

I’ll take my fingers out of your ears the second you give me your soul.

### HILARY

[Grunting] No, it’s mine. I need it. I use it when I’m shopping.

### KEITH

[Struggling] But I want it. Your soul will bring me closer to God.

### HILARY

[not grunting] Isn’t that what your own soul’s for?

### KEITH

[not struggling] Don’t be so naïve. Just give me the sodding soul, you cow.

### F/X

[door dings, door opens]

### HILARY

Killian! Help me! I’m being sat on.

### KILLIAN

Well, if it isn’t my nemesis, Keith. Keith, big man in the Christian Union these days, I hear.

### KEITH

Curses! I’m hopelessly outnumbered. I shall leave. See you.

### HILARY

Bye.

### KILLIAN

There’s no need to be nice to him, Hilary.

### HILARY

Oh. Right. Booo!

### F/X

### [door slams shut, ding]

### KILLIAN

Did he get near your soul, Hilary?

### HILARY

No. I didn’t tell him where I keep it.

### KILLIAN

Where do you keep it?

### HILARY

(coyly) I’m not telling you.

### KILLIAN

Oh, go on. You can tell me. [emotionlessly] I’m your friend.

### HILARY

[soppily] You’re my best friend. It’s six inches up my fat hairy arse.

### KILLIAN

Oh, for… What’s it doing there?

### HILARY

It’s not my fault. It fell down there after I reversed over a hump-backed bridge.

### KILLIAN

Well don’t let it drop out. The last thing I want to find is your soul in the laundry basket.

### HILARY

Don’t worry. It’s quite stuck. I tried getting it out with one of my girlfriend’s vibrators. I put blu-tack on the end.

### KILLIAN

And?

### HILARY

No joy. [pause] Actually, that’s not true. Plenty of joy, but it didn’t get my soul out. And I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the blu-tack since. Although I’ve kept the vibrator to try and get it back out with ever more Blu-Tack.

### KILLIAN

Please don’t say hair and hide together when we’re talking about things up your arse.
As we so often do.

### F/X

### [ding, door opens, rapid footsteps, Keith re-enters]

### KEITH

Hello again.

### HILARY

Hello, Keith! Would you like to borrow my car?

### KILLIAN

Stop being nice to your enemies, Hilary.

### KEITH

Stupid thing, really – I forgot my tirade. Can I?

### KILLIAN

Go on then. But quickly.

### KEITH

Our war with the godless judiciary will continue! I will return, with an army of loving hate, and I shall wear your souls as grisly trophies around my neck. OK?

### HILARY

[friendly again] Next week?

### KEITH

Week after. I’m having my Alsatian bleached and died blue so that people will talk to me.

### F/X

### [Scooby Doo “starting to run” footsteps, door slamming, ding]

### HILARY

Blimey. He’s fast. I’ll give him that.

### NARRATOR

[after a brief silence] In the icy wastes of the Arctic, it is so cold that eskimos have to cut holes in the ice just to let the fish breathe. However, in the blistery heat of the Sahara Desert, people bury themselves alive in T-Bag shaped pyramids, and shoot the sun with lasers – vainly believing that this will bring about the night.

This is the story of three judges who live in Ludlow, Shropshire, where the weather is changeable, but largely clement. It’s called the [clumsily pronounced] M’lud Life.

### THEME TUNE

# 3: INSIDE THE PENTHOUSE
killian and hilary keep talking, and jools is introduced

### KILLIAN

Hilary, do something dangerous. Attack me.

### HILARY

Why?

### KILLIAN

I’ve just had this Spider Sense put in. It tingles when I’m in danger. Just run at me, screaming, and waving this stick about. Tell me you’re going to kill me.

### HILARY

I’d feel ridiculous. And it wouldn’t work. You’d know I didn’t mean it.

### KILLIAN

Well, mean it then. Be feral; run around in your baggy boxer shorts, trying to stab me.

### HILARY

No. I’m not going to. I’m just not that type of judge, Mr Redgrave.

### F/X

### [ding, door opening, Tarzan scream, thudding of body against wall]

### HILARY

Hello, Jools. How’s your day been?

### JOOLS

Magic. Bloody magic.

### HILARY

Where did you get the jungle vine from?

### JOOLS

Shop.

### HILARY

We’ll get it hung up for you. It’s not quite the same when you just run into walls with it wrapped around your neck. You just look like a fool.

### JOOLS

Smart. Bed. [door slams]

### NARRATOR

The last judge, Lord Julian Porter. Although he thinks he became immortal after buying some pegs from a gypsy, the real reason he hasn’t aged at all for the last ten years is the release of certain enzymes, triggered by a regime of furious masturbation. As I speak, Lord Porter is shooting gum bullets into the shower.

### KILLIAN

OK, so to help neutralise the Christian threat, I’ve taken several steps. I’ve had some purple knockout gas, à la Batman, installed into the lift, which is the only way into the flat. I’ve installed a trap door in the lift too, like in the Children’s TV programme Trap Door, and there’s a bank of CCTV … TVs … over there, so that Jools can look at everyone else in the tower block shagging. Like that film. With that bird.

### HILARY

Hey, look at this. According to the ding-o-meter...

### KILLIAN

Ding-o-meter?

### HILARY

Yes. It counts the amount of times that the lift goes “ding”. All lifts have them, so that ding pollution may be monitored.

### KILLIAN

[out-of-characteristally American] That is so not true. . you’s jerking my dick.

### HILARY

No, I’m not. Ding pollution occurs where there is such an excess of dings that other noises, such as parp and splat cannot be heard. Allow me to demonstrate.

### F/X

Regular sound effects. Parp, ding, splat, whistle. Parp, ding, splat, whistle.

### HILARY

See – the four comedy sounds in perfect harmony. But if you introduce another ding, you disrupt the natural balance.

### F/X

Parp, ding, ding, splat-whistle. Where splat-whistle occupies one beat and melt into each other.

### HILARY

The ding is cramping the splat-whistle. Add more dings, Mr Maestro!

### F/X

###### Add a ding that starts a quarter beat just after the parp

### HILARY

The parp is compromised! Two more dings….

### F/X

More dings – including a strained clockwork speeding up effect, and a sproing!

### HILARY

The logical conclusion is chaos. I rest my case.

### KILLIAN

Take it all back and tell me you’re lying. Because I know you’re lying, and I’ll going to mess around with you unless you tell me the truth.

### HILARY

You believe what makes you happy.

### KILLIAN

I certainly will. Right now, I’m believing that I’m in a nu-metal band called “Cunnimash Depot”.

### HILARY

Anway, the lift went ding while we were out. I think there’s someone in the flat.

### KILLIAN

(starts giggling) Oh, there is as well. My spider sense is going spazlicious.

### HILARY

Do you think we should do something?

### KILLIAN

[enormous whooping giggle and “easy tiger” playful growling]

### NARRATOR

So now we know our heroes. Across the town, in another house, Mary Highpole arrives home after a day of re-organising her desk-tidy, after a promotion. It came as something of a wee revelation to her to find a small abrasive rubber in one of the taller tubes. She means to eat it, but no-one must see her secret shame. Meanwhile, her flatmates are planning to tell her that they hate her, and want her to move out right now.

Before we go there, however, here’s the sound of someone choking on their own hand to the tune of Pulp’s “Disco 2000”.

### F/X

### The Intro to Disco 2000, with muffled gagging joining in after a couple of seconds.
End before Jarvis starts singing.

# 4 : MARY’S HOUSE
mary gets promoted, moves out, and leaves her cat on the washing line

## Stella and Grant talk about getting Mary out.

### STELLA

So this is how we’re going to tell her to move out. I’ll leave a post-it note in one of her undies. She will find it, and leave without question.

### GRANT

She’s got about fifteen pairs of undies; it could take a fortnight before she found them.

### STELLA

Then some powerful and surprising laxative might be in order.

### GRANT

Maaaah. I still think we should spell “LEAVE NOW” in the Domino Rally style, and ask her to push the first domino.

### STELLA

How do you know how many pairs of knickers she has?

### GRANT

My curious nose went a-sniff-snortin’.

### STELLA

Oh. What did they smell of?

### GRANT

Warm Lego.

### STELLA

Quick! Here she comes! Hide!

### GRANT

Why?

### F/X

### [door open, Tigger bouncing sound]

### GRANT

Hello, Mary. You seem quite happy today..?

### MARY

I am. I just got promoted, and now I’m well out of your league. I’m the Scrutiniser of Quiet Men at a local firm of accountants. I stare at inadequate types until they cry, then I run over and hug them, whilst whispering sexual threats in their ears.

### STELLA

Oh. Is…

### MARY

Yes, it’s incredibly well paid. I’m just picking up my knickers. One of the conditions of my employment is that I live with these three judges, and [reading] “provide a token female role in an otherwise anally homocentric comedy programme”. So I’ll just pick up my knickers and leave you two to sex each other’s mouths off.

### GRANT

Aren’t you going to take these?

### MUSIC

### [Sinister children’s music box, just audible. Atmosphere becomes heavy, underwater]

### MARY

Take what?

### STELLA

Your hybrid zoo of the damned.

### NARRATOR

[suddenly lightweight, very cheerful] Mary has been experimenting for the last fifteen years with taxidermy. She’s not very good, but she stuck at it, on the premise that no-one is born with the innate ability to stuff dead animals. However, driven by her dreams of a tall figure dressed in back, she started manufacturing dark beasts. A row of crows locked in an unholy conga line. A badger with the head of a spaniel, supported cruelly by the neck of an ant. And of course, a voodoo cat with no nose. How does it smell? Like your mum.

Before we return to the action, let’s hear what a load of living crows doing the conga might sound like.

### MUSIC

### [Eight bars of conga music; the kicks are pronounced by a growing number of caws.]

### MUSIC

### [back to the oppressive horror atmosphere, with music box and all that]

### GRANT

Are you taking these things with you then?

### MARY

No, ta. I’m not sure if the judges would approve of me digging up my neighbour’s dead pets and stuffing them with wire wool and jamrags.

### STELLA

[faintly disgusted] Oh, throw them away, Grant.

### MARY

Well. All my knickers seem to be in order. Goodbye.

### F/X

### [heavy clomping exit]

### STELLA

Throw that cat away.

### GRANT

Where should I put it?

### STELLA

Put it on the rotary washing line. A kestrel’ll pick it up.

# 5: THE PENTHOUSE LOUNGE
killian and hilary begin to realise who is in their flat

### NARRATOR

Back in the flat, Killian has had to turn off his spider sense so that he can talk effectively about their unwelcome guest. Fortunately, with the installation, the mysterious shopkeeper fitted a tuner onto Killian’s nipple. He can turn off his danger alarm simply by playing with his nipple for two minutes.

### KILLIAN

And this is all very well, but what if I’m in really bad danger, I’m giggling like a girl, and have to twist my nipple? A mugger would think I was being turned on by his bludgeoning. He might decide to have sex on me.

### HILARY

That would make you giggle even more, wouldn’t it? Because of the danger, I mean.

### KILLIAN

And I’d have to play even more frantically with my nipples. It’s a vicious circle. I’d end up with a queue of muggers lining up to rape me, while I giggle and tug at my tits like a nympho. And that’s not what I’m really after.

### HILARY

You’d better get it taken out, then. Where did he put it?

### KILLIAN

Up my arse.

### HILARY

I thought he might have done.

### KILLIAN

Anyway…to the matter in hand. There’s an intruder in the flat, and we’ve no idea who it is. Have you noticed anything odd recently?

### HILARY

Well, there’s something wrong with my tape recorder. Listen to this.

### MUSIC

### [Betty Boo’s “Where Are You Baby?” played at double speed]

### HILARY

Someone’s been tinkering with my Betty Boo.

### KILLIAN

The bastards.

### HILARY

[upset] Who could it be? Who would twist my Betty so?

### KILLIAN

I think I may have an idea.

# 6: JOOL’S BEDROOM
where jools is watching a cranefly fuck an earwig

### NARRATOR

Meanwhile, just feet away, Lord Julian Porter is watching the closed circuit television, and is watching a spectacular sex show being put on for him by a cranefly, and a naïve earwig.

### JOOLS

You leggy minx. Look at you. You filthy cow. Walking up and down the wall, using your sucking sex powers. Wiggling your tiny, tiny, bottom at me like that. Ah, you’re not wearing clothes, I see. Very wise. You can’t wet yourself when you’re not wearing clothes, and I can tell you’re a little kinky, aren’t you? A little… oops upside your head? Nothing to be ashamed of. Never hurt anyone, my dear. Dance your own dance; dream a little dream of me. Hello, who’s this? A curious earwig, drawn into your boudoir. By jove, he’s not messing around, is he? Straight up there like a… hang on, that’s a lady earwig! You’re lesbians! Calm down, Jools. It’s not their fault. Don’t let your morality get in the way of a cracking nut fumble.

### F/X

### [blop blop blop sound of bubbles rising to the surface, then a convincing splat]

### JOOLS

Well done, ladies. Good show.

# 7: MARY’s OLD GARDEN
where the cat without a nose is resurrected

### F/X

[Beginning of a storm – slight wind, some rain. Creaking of a rotary washing line under the weight of a dead cat. As the commentary gets to the implication of the cat being alive, a human saying “meow” occasionally and quietly begins.]

### NARRATOR

Meanwhile, a storm is brewing over the rotary washing line. As the clouds draw together like … two artists … , the discarded voodoo cat swings in the fresh breeze. Pegged up by the tail, a creature without dignity, circled by the hungry kestrels of the Ludlow parish. As the pressure in the atmosphere builds, an observer prone to hysteria would say that they saw the cat winking. As the sky darkens and the hairs on your disgusting hairy neck stand on end, you might say that you saw the gleam of a protracted claw. And when lightning strikes the rotary washing line, passing thousands of volts through the central nervous system of the voodoo fuelled pussy, you might think that you saw the cat fly off, using its tail as a helicopter blade.

### F/X

### [Helicopter blade sound, with a human saying “meow” at full volume]

# 8: MARY’S OLD HOUSE
mary forgot a pair of knickers

### F/X

### [the rain from outside, and spooky tinkling on a toy piano]

### MARY
[struggling through the thought process]

Hello? Hello? Is anyone home? I forgot a pair of knickers. Oh… my God! You’re both dead! You’re both covered in blood, and completely dead! And – wowsers – the garden is full of dead kestrels. And what’s this? Oh, dear – it’s a hairball. This can only mean… this can only mean that that cat was somehow resurrected, perhaps … using the washing line a conduit for … the lightning. And judging by the state of the curtains, it’s using its tail as a helicopter blade.

# 9: THE PENTHOUSE
killian and hilary discuss the other clues as to the trespasser’s identity

### F/X

### [Betty Boo’s Doing The Doo playing at double volume]

### KILLIAN

Will you stop playing that sturgeon?

### HILARY

Hang on a minute. I’m doing the doo.

### KILLIAN

I can see that. It’s revolting. Turn that turbot off.

### HILARY

Not if you don’t stop referring to Betty Boo in terms of fish. It’s sexist and it doesn’t make sense.

### KILLIAN

I’ll tell you what doesn’t make sense. A forty-eight year old judge dancing around his bedroom to hip-hop music. Wiggling his hips and patting his arse at the mirror. Turn it off.

### F/X

### [the music ends]

### KILLIAN

Right then. Have you noticed anything odd recently? I think the net is closing around our intruder.

### HILARY

Well, someone’s been eating my Ryvita. Wasn’t it you? I thought I’d been sleep-eating, or something.

### KILLIAN

No, I don’t eat Ryvita. Or anything else that promotes disgust.

### HILARY

I had thought about leaving myself a Post-It note. But I didn’t know if I could sleep-read, because I’m not sure whether you have your eyes open or not when you’re sleep-walking. You’d think not, but what if you’d left a roller-skate at the top of the stairs?

### KILLIAN

… Hilary …

### HILARY

So I thought I might eat the Post-It note in error, and the gum would stick in my throat. Oh – do you remember the time I made a papier mache mould of my willy, so that I could get a special vibrator made for my girlfriend? That got stuck, didn’t it? I couldn’t wee-wee for weeks. It started dribbling out of my belly button in the end. Do you remember? Killian? Do you remember trying to pull off my penis mould? Killian?

### KILLIAN

Hilary, shut your mouth.

### HILARY

My face was like this, remember? I was going “ooooooooh!” because it hurt a bit, and you were grunting really noisily, because of the effort. Do you remember the photographer? The young man who took the photo of you trying to pull off my cast?

### KILLIAN

My career was set back ten years.

### HILARY

We shouldn’t have gone to the park to take it off.

### KILLIAN

With hindsight, no.

### HILARY

And it didn’t help that I’d ejaculated all over the place.

[pause]

### KILLIAN

So, our second clue to the mystery visitor is your missing Ryvita. Add that to double-speed Betty Boo, and it’s beginning to take shape. I’ve noticed something myself. I found this under my pillow.

### HILARY

It looks like a tiny tooth.

### KILLIAN

I’ve sent it off to the lab, and they’ve discovered that it’s a tiny tooth.

### HILARY

Of course it is. It’s a little Chipmunk’s tooth.

### KILLIAN

Hilary, I spent two hundred pounds having this tooth analysed.

### HILARY

You should have spent it on chocolates, for me.

### KILLIAN

Well, if you look closer, you’ll see that the tooth is oddly smooth, and doesn’t get darker on the side that should be in shadow. And look – when I throw it against the wall.

### F/X

[extreme ricochet sounds for about ten seconds, with glass smashing, hooters, klaxons, and that sound you make when you flip your finger against your lips and go “flubber”]

### HILARY

Do you mean…

### KILLIAN

Yes. It’s a cartoon chipmunk’s tooth. That explains your music being sped up –human singing must seem intolerably dreary and underpaced to cartoon chipmunks.

### HILARY

And how does that explain my Ryvita?

### KILLIAN

Chipmunks love Ryvita – it’s a well-documented fact. However, this little chipmunk hasn’t been looking after his teeth, and the grit-like texture of your Ryvita must have broken them. [shouts] Come out, Alvin. We know it’s you.

### ALVIN

Sorry, Mr Redgrave. I should have known better than to mess with you. You’re far too clever for me.

### KILLIAN

Stop grovelling, you filthy little shit.

### HILARY

It’s Alvin! Sing us a song, Alvin. Please!

### KILLIAN

No, he is not singing us a song. He is a disease filled rodent, and must be killed.

### HILARY

Cartoon chipmunks don’t carry diseases. Well, they sometimes catch a cold and have to be tucked up in bed with a thermometer in their mouth, but it never lasts for longer than 25 minutes, and it’s only ever an excuse to have loads of flashbacks. Just one song…

### KILLIAN

Very well. Just as long as there’s a judicial theme.

### ALVIN

How about “Love in the Third Degree” by Bananarama?

### ALL

Excellent!

### SONG

### [twenty seconds of “Love In The First Degree”, the instrumental bit in the middle]

### HILARY

Well, that is an excellent song, but love isn’t a crime, is it, Killian?

### KILLIAN

You can’t force your wife to have sex with a dog.

### HILARY

Well that’s not really love, is it?

### KILLIAN

I never said it was.

### ALVIN

The act of consensual sado-masochistic love is still a crime. The House of Lords decided in the Operation Spanner case that you aren’t allowed to hammer nails through a man’s penis, no matter how much he likes it.

### HILARY

Oh. Bananarama must have been singing about that, then. They must have been singing about third degree wax burns to the testicles.

### KILLIAN

[after a pause] Big tits!

### HILARY

Pardon?

### ALVIN

There’s no need for that sort of behaviour, Mr Redgrave.

### KILLIAN

Stop knowing my name, Chipmunk! And yes, there was. You were all going gay, again, and I just thought I’d mention tits so that you two don’t forget that they exist, and give milk to our children.

### HILARY

I’m not gay, I don’t think. Well, I’ve got a girlfriend, anyway. But she is a bit ugly. Perhaps I’m using her as a man replacement.

### KILLIAN

Don’t be so bloody open-minded! You’re a judge!

### ALVIN

[aside, to Hilary] Is he repressing?

### KILLIAN

Right – I heard that. I’m off to the shops to buy an Alsatian and a big poster of Cheryl Crow with her BIG TITS out. And then I’m going to sleep on top of the poster. You can stay here and shove that fucking chipmunk up your arse.

### F/X

### [clomping, angry exit, slam, ding]

### HILARY

[confused, not excited] Do you want me to put you up my arse?

### ALVIN

Not really. Tried it once… wasn’t me.

### HILARY

No, me either. I don’t know what made him say that. He needs a girlfriend.

# 10: THE STREETS OF LUDLOW
a chance meeting between killian and mary

### F/X

### [The sounds of destruction and war. The voodoo cat is on a rampage]

### NARRATOR

Meanwhile, the streets have been transformed into a bloodbath. The unearthly voodoo cat, seeking revenge on the world that created it, shoots snotty strings of flame from the place where its nose should be. In the middle of the carnage, Mary makes her way to her new home, and Killian nips out for some pictures of the lovely Cheryl Crow. Is it chance alone, that their paths should cross?

### KILLIAN

Hello there! What’s going on here? Everything’s on fire!

### MARY

Well, it’s like this. I’ve been promoted …

### F/X

### [Voice fades into a musical “time passes”]

### MARY

… as a helicopter blade.

### KILLIAN

That’s lovely. Fancy a shag?

### MARY

What do you mean, shag? Carpet, tobacco, or sex?

### KILLIAN

[being dead cool] Sex on the carpet, then a cigarette. Bit of a shag medley.

### MARY

That’d be charming. But don’t you think we should stop the voodoo cat, first?

### KILLIAN

Can’t we stop the voodoo cat by shagging?

### MARY

Probably not.

### KILLIAN

Well, just as long as you haven’t gone off the boil by the time we’ve stopped the cat. I know what you women are like.

### MARY

Oh, you are post-PC. I like that.

### KILLIAN

I also genuinely believe that all black people are evil.

### MARY

[giggles sexually] Oh, yes! But look – the cat’s headed straight for that shiny tower block… the eighteenth floor...

### KILLIAN

That’s my house – damn you, cat!

# 11: THE PENTHOUSE
alvin and hilary encounter the cat

### MUSIC

### [Alvin and Hilary are doing an acapella version of Super Fly Guy by S-Express]

### ALVIN & HILARY

Super fly guy, gonna take you hi-gh. Super fly guy, gonna take you high.

### ALVIN

I love you, Mr Winters.

### HILARY

And I love you, Alvin. Where are your two friends?

### ALVIN

Which two friends?

### HILARY

There were three of you on the TV series. And that big human.

### ALVIN

Oh, you mean Simon and Theodore. They’re both dead. They got too involved in the celebrity scene, and Brian Blessed ate them.

### HILARY

How sad.

### ALVIN

They were my best friends.

### F/X

### [helicopter whup whup whupping sound, through a window]

### HILARY

What the New Schmoo is that?

# 12: OUTSIDE THE FLAT
a voodoo priest gives some valuable advice

### F/X

### [sirens, fires, but no sounds of attack]

### NARRATOR

As Mary and Killian rush to the lift, they find their passage blocked by an enormous man with a bone through his nose.

### MARY

How do you do? Who are you?

### VOODOO PRIEST

[big stereotypical tribal accent ] Don’t start that “rhyming things with Voodoo” shit. I am a Vodun priest o f Ogou Balanjo, a minor spirit of healing. I am here because I can sense suffering.

### KILLIAN

You can sense suffering?

### VOODOO PRIEST

Only just about everywhere. The whole bloody town is on fire. It makes me sick through my face. Even now, your friends are in peril. I have brought with me the nose of a holy cat. Logically, that should make everything OK. If you can get the nose back onto the cat without being utterly hurt.

### KILLIAN

Thank you very much.

### F/X

[sound like the mask on Crash Bandicoot, along with the sound of twinkling fairy dust, and a smoke bomb]

### MARY

[coughing through the smoke] Where did he go?

### KILLIAN

I don’t know. What mysterious powers could have... oh – there he is. Hiding around the corner.

### MARY

Pretend you haven’t seen him – he probably wanted to make a dramatic exit.

### VOODOO PRIEST

[from around the corner] Don’t patronise me!

# 13: THE PENTHOUSE
where it is all going to end

### F/X

### [helicopter sound and meowing]

### HILARY

Oh, you brave Chipmunk! You gave your own life to save mine. [suddenly angry] You fat ! You killed Alvin! You robbed the world of his music!

### EVIL VOODOO CAT

Meow. Rowr.

### F/X

### [the lift dings]

### KILLIAN

Hilary – distract the cat by dancing over there. Mary – get into the bedroom and ready yourself for Daddy Sex. I’ll leap over the sofa… like this… [flamethrower sound] and avoid that jet of flame…

### NARRATOR

For ease of listening, each character will now simply say what they are doing.

### KILLIAN

I’m ddging stealthily around the wall.

### HILARY

I’m turning on the stereo – thinking being that music might soothe the beast.

### MUSIC

##### Happy Hour by the Housemartins

### HILARY

I’m beginning to dance hypnotically.

### VOODOO CAT

Meow.

### MARY

[in the comparative quiet of Killian’s bedroom] Away from the action, I’m reclining on Killian’s double bed and unbuttoning my blouse.

### KILLIAN

[back in the noise and music] Rolling underneath the cat.

### HILARY

### I’m having a nostalgic vogue.

### VOODOO CAT

Meow.

### MARY

Cupping left breast with right hand.

### KILLIAN

I’m grabbing cat… wrestling to floor… trying to put nose onto creature…

### HILARY

I’ve just been hit by a stray jet of flame… running around in circles, screaming. Becoming badly burnt.

### VOODOO CAT

Meow.

### MARY

Bringing images of David Hasselhoff to mind.

### KILLIAN

Pressing nose onto cat…

### F/X

### [loud pop, Crash Bandicoot mask sound again, and a slumping sound. Only Happy Hour continues, quietly]

### NORMAL CAT

Meow.

### KILLIAN

Well, that’s that, then. We did it! And now, sex with the new girl.

### MARY

No, I don’t want to any more. I’ve just gone off the idea. No reason.

### KILLIAN

Typical.

### MARY

It’s OK, though – I’m moving in to this flat, so I daresay you’ll have a fair while to try and get me in the sack yet.

### KILLIAN

I shall leave metal bird seed on the road, and install a magnet above my bed. When you eat it, I shall have you! See, I’ve got a smart blueprint here, with dotted lines showing your projected path into my bed. There’s no chance it’ll backfire.

### HILARY

[to cat purring] Can we keep the cat? He’s quite nice now.

### KILLIAN

Hmm. As long as it’s not an excuse for pussy jokes.

### HILARY

A ha, ha ha! Heaven forefend, no!

### MARY

Well, I’ll just feed it some of this congealed beef fat.

### KILLIAN

I beg your pardon?

### MARY

I’m just giving … the cat … this plate of congealed beef fat. For its dinner.

### KILLIAN

What is it … on the plate?

### MARY

My pussy’s dripping.

### HILARY

Bloody hell, I’m still on fire! Ow!

### NARRATOR

And that’s the end of the first episode. Make sure you tune into the second episode, which promises to follow much the same format as this one. Bye.